[ad_1]
Lyle Jack stands in front of a substation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he hopes to connect a wind farm to the grid.
Dan Charles/NPR
Hide title
Toggle Title
Dan Charles/NPR
Lyle Jack stands in front of a substation on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where he hopes to connect a wind farm to the grid.
Dan Charles/NPR
The Pine Ridge Reservation is located in the southwestern corner of South Dakota. windyIn fact, Lyle Jack realized that his tribe, the Olara Lakota Nation, and many other tribes in the area could pay for a lot of what they needed just by harnessing some wind energy.
That’s why for the past 20 years, Lyle has been trying to build a wind farm on an Indiana reservation. He overcame many obstacles, such as convincing most of the tribes in South Dakota to join together to form a company. They chose a place to build the windmills where the wind was strong and – crucially – there was a transmission line. This way, the wind farm could be connected to the grid.
These power lines on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota need to be rebuilt to carry electricity from a planned wind farm.
Dan Charles/NPR
Hide title
Toggle Title
Dan Charles/NPR
These power lines on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota need to be rebuilt to carry electricity from a planned wind farm.
Dan Charles/NPR
Here Lyle encountered the obstacle that was holding his project back. There were so many people trying to connect their new solar and wind projects to the grid right now that it was creating a massive traffic jam. All of these projects were queued up together: the interconnection queue.
Today on the show: Long transmission lines. Green energy may be the future, but right now, the people who run the nation’s grid are struggling to figure out how to get all these new projects online. It’s a high-pressure tightrope walk, but if they succeed, they can secure the future of the planet. No pressure.
This episode was produced by Willa Rubin. Edited by Sally Helm, fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and designed by Katherine Silva. Jess Jiang is our acting executive producer.
Subscribe to Planet Money+ to help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes In Apple Podcasts or plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
These links are always free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, NPR One Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / Tik Tok / We Weekly communication.
music: “Fashionable Reverie“”Deep Desert Blues” and”Bruce Swagger“”.
[ad_2]
Source link
